Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to thank the member for his question, and I acknowledge this is an issue which is very dear to his heart—I know it has touched his family—and I would like to thank him for the contribution he's made to this debate and the passage of this bill, as I would all members of this House.

Today the Senate passed the National Redress Scheme. What it showed was that this parliament, every single member of this parliament both here in the House and in the Senate, was able to put survivors first. And today will mean a lot to those survivors. Come 1 July, we will be able to provide them with redress, and our task now—and I say this very much in a bipartisan fashion—is to make sure we deliver that redress to the best of our ability. It will involve a payment of up to $150,000, access to psychological counselling services and personal apologies from the institutions.

Not only do we have a commitment from every state and territory government to join the National Redress Scheme, but we also have the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the Salvation Army, the Scouts, the Uniting Church and the YMCA agreeing to be part of the scheme. That takes coverage to over 90 per cent, and I look forward to other institutions joining over the coming weeks.

Prime Minister, when we met with survivors and with the premiers of Victoria and New South Wales and their attorneys-general at Kirribilli, Leonie Sheedy was there. She has advocated incredibly strongly for this National Redress Scheme. You will remember she cut your tie in half, she cut Dan Andrews' tie in half and then she cut Mark Speakman's and Martin Pakula's ties in half. She then headed to cut my tie in half. I said to Leonie I didn't want to do that because I wanted to see the passage of the bill through before I cut the tie in half that I wore that day. I will be going back to my office, I will be cutting that tie in half and I will be sending it to Leonie.

I would like to now call on the shadow minister for social services, Jenny Macklin, to say a few words.

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